The retired NBA Hall of Famer, who is 51, is not expected to have an editorial role in the company. "His role is the chairman," Brett Wright, co-CEO of Vibe and Uptown magazines, which are part of Vibe Holdings, told Journal-isms.

Johnson said in a news release that he would focus on the bigger picture. "History and legacy are paramount in building brand affinity and we plan to integrate this ideology into the resurgence of Vibe Holdings. Through leveraging established brand equity we will create a pertinent message vehicle for major advertisers. We will redefine Vibe Holdings as the center of influence for the coveted urban audience."

The company includes black ownership, but ownership is not majority black, Wright said.

The news release said, "In the role of Chairman, Johnson, a venerated and proven architect of niche market development, will utilize his unparalleled business acumen to fuel the continued growth of Vibe Holdings through targeted brand extensions and the creation of diversified advertiser-friendly platforms."

"At the time, Johnson said that he remained interested in African-American media. Since then, Magic Johnson Enterprises liquidated its interest in about 105 Starbucks coffee shops, giving Starbucks Corp. all of the equity in those stores, according to Lisa Magnino, a spokeswoman for the company.

"Johnson also sold his stake in the Los Angeles Lakers, the National Basketball Association franchise where he once starred, the team said in October. Johnson has partnerships with several other companies, including 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc. and T.G.I. Friday’s Inc."

The company announcement continued, "Vibe Holdings also announced today that Robert Miller, the co-founder of Vibe Magazine and former publisher of Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine, will become Chairman of the Vibe and Uptown magazine group. Len Burnett and Brett Wright will remain Co-CEOs of Vibe and Uptown magazines, and Kenard Gibbs will continue to serve as CEO of Soul Train."

Uptown magazine, an African American-oriented lifestyle publication, began regional editions and recorded a 18.7 percent circulation increase for the second half of 2010, even as U.S. consumer magazine circulation in general completed two consecutive years of declines.

According to Burnett, Uptown founder and CEO, "Uptown currently runs on a hybrid model in which 35 percent of its copies are sent to households with a total income of $75,000+ in smaller cities such as Charlotte and $125,000+ in larger cities such as New York, 30 percent are sold via subscriptions and 15 percent are sold on the newsstand. The rest are sent to restaurants, lounges, hotels and other venues where the targeted audience may socialize."

Ebony and Jet magazines continued a circulation slide in the second half of 2010, missing their rate base — the circulation guaranteed advertisers — according to figures filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations. But Uptown magazine, part of Vibe Holdings, posted an 18.7 percent circulation gain.

Among magazines targeting Hispanics, Time Inc.'s People en Español dropped 2.3 percent, from 571,084 to 558,059, exceeding its rate base of 540,000. Latina rose one-tenth of 1 percent, from 508,002 to 508,406, exceeding its rate base of 500,000. Siempre Mujer (Always a Woman), published by the Meredith Corp., increased 1.5 percent, from 458,873 to 465,654.

Overall, consumer magazines slowed a general circulation skid, with total paid and verified circulation dropping 1.2 percent for the second half of 2010. That compares with a 2.3 percent drop in the first half of the year, Matt Kinsman reported for Folio magazine, citing the preliminary figures released Monday.

"Newsstand sales accelerated their fall, down 7.3 percent (compared to a 5.6 percent drop in the beginning of the year). Total paid subscriptions also fell 1.2 percent," Kinsman wrote.

Ebony's rate base was 1,250,000, but its circulation dropped 14.8 percent in 2010, from 1,169,879 to 997,173. Jet's rate base was 900,000, but it fell 11.5 percent from 795,055 to 703,944.

Jet's editor, Mira Lowe, left in January. Rodrigo A. Sierra, chief marketing officer and senior vice president at Johnson Publishing, said at the time that Lowe's successor would be "a strong leader who has a really good idea of where they think that magazine can go for the future," who will keep it linked to the community and preside over "a very strong digital site."

Uptown, which has been adding regional editions, went from 178,518 to 211,922, meeting its rate base of 200,000.

Black Enterprise magazine did not file its figures for either half of 2010, but spokesman Andrew Wadium said it planned to file for a supplemental report published Feb. 22. He said he did not have the circulation figures.

"Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud was a reporter for the state-owned newspaper Al-Ta’awun. He was shot on Friday, January 28th, when he tried to use his phone to film riot police as they fired tear gas canisters at protesters. He spent a week in the hospital before he died Friday. On Monday, journalists, family and friends held a symbolic funeral in Cairo, marching from the Journalists’ Syndicate to Tahrir Square holding an empty coffin.

"Al Jazeera English producer and writer Laila Al-Arian has just returned from Cairo, where she interviewed Mahmoud’s widow. Laila Al-Arian joins us in Washington, D.C.

Al-Arian continued the story. "His wife, Inas Abdel Alim, is also a journalist," Al-Arian said. "She is demanding a full investigation into the killing of her husband. She says no one knows who the perpetrator is, no one knows his name, although there were six or seven eyewitnesses that she spoke with at the scene who saw everything happen.

"She’s demanding that the Interior Ministry, especially, but in general that the government of Egypt investigate this killing of her husband, the first journalist killed during the Egyptian revolution, along with other human rights organizations who are also demanding the same thing. And she says there needs to be justice.

"She says, 'My family has been ruined. You know, our lives are over.' She still hasn’t actually been able to tell her 10-year-old daughter that her father has been killed. She says she’s too afraid to do so. So, her life has been changed forever, and all she wants is justice for her husband and, you know, for this to be investigated and for the person responsible to be put on trial."

"After an unprecedented assault on the press last week, anti-press attacks and detentions have been subsiding since the weekend, CPJ tracking has found. But numerous journalists have reported an ongoing government effort to obstruct and intimidate them."

"Indeed, everyone at the Huffington Post is benefiting financially from the deal — some through the vesting of options, and others through a special bonus pool that Arianna and the board decided to create to reward employees without options. To be clear, that applies to over 200 people.”

"Latinos are less likely than whites to access the internet, have a home broadband connection or own a cell phone, according to survey findings from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center," Gretchen Livingston of the Pew Hispanic Center reported on Wednesday. "Latinos lag behind blacks in home broadband access but have similar rates of internet and cell phone use.

"While about two-thirds of Latino (65%) and black (66%) adults went online in 2010, more than three-fourths (77%) of white adults did so. In terms of broadband use at home, there is a large gap between Latinos (45%) and whites (65%), and the rate among blacks (52%) is somewhat higher than that of Latinos. Fully 85% of whites owned a cell phone in 2010, compared with 76% of Latinos and 79% of blacks.

"Hispanics, on average, have lower levels of education and earn less than whites. Controlling for these factors, the differences in internet use, home broadband access and cell phone use between Hispanics and whites disappear. In other words, Hispanics and whites who have similar socioeconomic characteristics have similar usage patterns for these technologies.

"Survey questions also probed for the use of non-voice applications on cell phones. . . ."

Jannette L. Dates is stepping down as dean of the John H.Johnson School of Communications at Howard University, she announced on Tuesday. She has been dean or acting dean for 17½ years and associate dean for five.

A national search for a new dean is to begin immediately. Dates said she hopes to step down on June 30.

Dates said she would return to the faculty as a professor in the Department of Radio, Television and Film, devote more time to raising funds for a new building and conduct research. She said she planned a one-year sabbatical for research that includes communication policy and minority access to broadband technology. Dates is a board member of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council.

The school has lately been emphasizing use of social media and entrepreneurship, she told Journal-isms.

"During her tenure, she oversaw the growth of the undergraduate and graduate programs, the naming of the school in honor of John H. Johnson, the influential publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, and the formation of the graduate program in Mass Communications and Media Studies," the school said in a news release.

"She also formed partnerships with such media groups as NBC, NPR and Fox News. Last year she was instrumental in arranging with ABC News to locate a news desk at Howard University, which provides internships for Howard University students and the opportunity to produce pieces for national broadcasts through ABC-affiliated outlets. Likewise, during her tenure as dean, the National Newspaper Publishers Association relocated its news service to the Department of Journalism to give students opportunities to publish their stories and multimedia productions in the more than 200 member Black newspapers."

"Conservative Republicans and commentators have frequently blamed the housing crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which encourages banks to make loans in the low- and moderate-income areas where they operate.

"The AFRO-American Newspapers, one of the nation’s oldest news organizations dedicated to covering the African American community, has created a comprehensive collection of over a million articles that captures the African American experience in business, civil rights, education, health, law, and sports beginning in the late 19th century," the newspapers announced on Tuesday.

" 'It took us over 10 years to develop and fine tune the concept to make the AFRO’s Archive site a reality and Google played a key role, said publisher Jake Oliver. 'The site includes original page views of complete editions of the newspaper dating back to the early 1900s and in-depth coverage of important stories such as the events of the arrests and national spectacle surrounding Scottsboro Boys trials, the entertainment coverage of Black movies stars such as Dorothy Dandridge, the Army’s use of the Tuskegee Airmen (Fighting 99th) in World War II, coverage of the Little Rock 9 Integration in 1954 and many other events that helped to shape the black community.'

"Researchers, students, historians, teachers, and other groups can use the Archives to trace family roots, develop talking points, craft speeches and gather information on a myriad of topics that affected African Americans. To access the AFRO-American Newspaper Archives on-line, a person should go to http://www.afro.com/afroblackhistoryarchives."

" 'Just asking the question can cause change,' said Prince, author of Journal-isms, an online column published three days a week on the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education’s website. His dispatches are widely considered must-reading for African-American journalists in particular, but for other journalists of color — and mainstream ones also."

Jones' piece appeared as part of a "Living Legends" series that BlackAmericaWeb.com undertook for Black History Month. It was accompanied by an appearance by this columnist Tuesday on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show," joining Roland Martin and the Joyner crew in a discussion of the AOL-Huffington Post deal and diversity in the online world. BlackAmericaWeb is Joyner's website.

"In its fifth full week of programming (1/31-2/6), OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network was down 17% vs. last week," Bill Gorman wrote Tuesday for TV by the Numbers. ". . . OWN is now well below last year’s women 25-54 averages for Discovery Health."

A YouTube video circulating around the Internet shows the artist again known as Prince kicking Kim Kardashian offstage at New York's Madison Square Garden Monday night. But just before Kardashian's turn, the video shows Prince doing the bump with Paula Madison, executive vice president of diversity at NBC Universal. "I met him last week in LA and we had a great conversation," Madison told Journal-isms. About . . . ? "Just say it was about whatever Prince wanted to talk about," Madison replied.

Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, is among those to be honored by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network at NAN's 13th Annual Keepers of the Dream Awards in New York on April 6. Griffin is being recognized for the memorandum of understanding that NBC and Comcast signed to increase diversity as they successfully sought approval of the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal.

In Mexico, "A leading news anchor accused the Mexican president's office Wednesday of pushing her employers to oust her after she discussed on a radio program allegations that the president suffered from drinking problems and demanded he respond, Nicholas Casey reported for the Wall Street Journal. "Carmen Aristegui was fired by MVS Comunicaciones, a Mexican media conglomerate, shortly after she aired the controversial radio broadcast last week directed at Mexican President Felipe Calderón. In it she repeated a congressman's accusation that Mr. Calderón suffered from alcoholism and said that the president owed Mexicans a response."

Richard Prince's Journal-isms originates from Washington and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It began in print before most of us knew what the Internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a "column." For newcomers: The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information. The Web site BugMeNot.com provides passwords and user names to some registration-only news sites, but use may be illegal in some states. Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity.

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